House Republicans seem shocked by their party's meltdown on the so-called fiscal cliff. They shouldn't be.

The uncompromising conservatives who blocked Speaker John Boehner's tax bill were merely sticking to policies that Boehner and nearly all other GOP leaders have pushed, without reservation, for years: It's always wrong to raise tax rates on anyone, no matter how rich. The nation's big deficit is entirely "a spending problem, not a revenue problem." And in any deficit-reduction plan, spending cuts must overwhelm new revenues, by 10-to-1 if not more.

To be surprised by Boehner's failure is to assume one of two things. Either House conservatives didn't really believe their party's bedrock principles; or they would compromise after seeing President Barack Obama win re-election on a deficit-reduction plan that called for higher taxes on the wealthy.

Neither was true. And now the Republican Party is reeling from unbending fealty to its core principles.

snip

The collapse of Boehner's tax effort "weakens the entire Republican Party," said Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-Ohio, who is retiring after 18 years.

"It's the continuing dumbing down of the Republican Party," he said, "and we are going to be seen more and more as a bunch of extremists that can't even get a majority of our own people to support policies that we're putting forward. If you're not a governing majority, you're not going to be a majority very long."

Republican consultant and writer Craig Shirley told The Washington Post: "The national GOP is now simply a collection of warring tribal factions."

snip

It's doubtful that any congressional Republicans see themselves as radicals. Polls nonetheless show that key GOP policies are drifting from mainstream American sentiment. The Republican establishment has yet to do much about it.

People just don’t get the scope of where spending has gone. With total debt exceeding 100% of GDP, they could tax every single person and business 100% of what they earn and it would not pay the debt. Taxing everyone who earns over 250K 100% of earnings wouldn’t even make a scratch in the annual deficit. All of this ‘tax the top 1% is just propaganda. The proposed tax increase on millionaires would pay about 8 minutes of government spending.

The problem has always been too much spending on out of control entitlement programs. Heck, thats been the issuse for 30 years now. Sure, maybe 10% of the fiscal issue can be resolved by ‘tax increases’ but, that’s it and I even that I’m not sure about. It is frustrating to think that Obama convinced the nation that taxing the rich will make it all go away but, the fact is he’s done it.

The entire ride that we’re on right now was built by the Democrats and somehow if we can’t figure a way off this stupid ride, it’s the GOP’s fault.

Bottom Line: Obama got us here whether the public knows it or not and we’ll just have to watch him do what he’s going to do while we maintain our principles....even if we also get the blame.

They may as well stick to their principles - theyre going to get blamed for everything no matter what happens.

I agree with you here. Why compromise when you have seen that no matter what happens you will be blamed for everything bad that happens? I think Republicans should publicly tell Obama that if they are going to take the fall, it will because their policies are the ones implemented. The biggest failure of republicans is that they send these squishes to the press who do not try to explain that it is not conservative policies that are the cause of the failures.

Congress' structure makes compromise essential, and the nation once lionized the 19th century senator and congressman Henry Clay as "the Great Compromiser." But the modern Republican Party is heavily energized by the tea party movement, which sees compromise as a triumph of flabby pragmatism over courageous conviction.

If you and I agree that a seller always wants a higher price and a buyer always wants a lower price, then we can negotiate a compromise on the old car I'm selling.

But if I think that my stated price is inviolable; you can only forsake your belief or walk away.

The Dems and the GOP are arguing about how to nibble around the edges of the deficit. Giving either side their way will still leave us $800 Billion in the hole. Even going over the fiscal cliff will leave us a deficit of almost $600 billion. If it is true that going over the cliff will ruin us, then there is no way to ever get a handle on our fiscal problems.

12
posted on 12/21/2012 4:48:06 PM PST
by csmusaret
(I will give Obama credit for one thing- he is living proof that familiarity breeds contempt.)

Obama and Obama alone is to blame. His $825 billion ‘stimulus’ got baked into the ‘budget’. That pushed the deficit over $ 1 trillion and there it has stayed for four years. As an added bonus, there has been no discernible benefit to the economy from these four years of trillion dollar deficits, just as most conservatives predicted. Obama policies led us to the cliff. The GOP is doing what it can, but, Americans reelected a moron. So be it.

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